For the third time in six months, British billionaire Mark Coombs is betting on bonds that many on Wall Street deem destined for default, Bloomberg News reported. Ashmore Group Plc, the $98 billion money manager led by Coombs, has been piling into Lebanon notes due March 9 just as many of its rivals warn a missed payment is all but certain. The firm boosted its holdings to more than 25% of the $1.2 billion of bonds, enough for a blocking stake if there’s a restructuring.

Following last week’s revocation of its operator licence, Addison Global’s MoPlay brand has announced that the company is now insolvent and has stopped withdrawals from customers, Inkedin reported. The operator was suspended after the UK Gambling Commission explained in a statement that it suspected ‘that Addison Global Limited has breached a condition of the licence (section 120(1)(b) and is unsuitable to carry on the licenced activities (section 120(1)(d) of the Act).’  Since the suspension, Moplay has ceased processing withdrawals, with the site now offline in the United Kingdom.

Taxpayers picked up the bill for a wave of insolvencies last year, with the cost of payouts to redundant staff jumping by 16%, Minutehack reported. A total of £346.1 million was paid out by The Insolvency Service to former employees of businesses which ran into trouble during 2019, according to a Freedom of Information request made by real estate adviser Altus Group. The payout was the highest in seven years, with the recent raft of retail and dining insolvencies contributing to the increase.

More than $12 million of the proceeds from the sale of Walford, once Ireland’s most expensive home, have been handed over to the trustee in one-time property mogul Sean Dunne’s US bankruptcy case, according to court papers filed on Friday, The Irish Times reported. The funds were turned over earlier this month pursuant to a proceeding in an Irish court, where Mr Dunne also faces a bankruptcy case, the filing says. It does not specify which court.

France is looking at options to help Lebanon recover from its financial crisis, including an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme if Beirut seeks one, a minister said on Monday, Reuters reported. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also told reporters in Abu Dhabi that he had discussed the situation in Lebanon with the United Arab Emirates leadership. “We are very concerned,” Le Maire said, adding that the United Arab Emirates and France will decide separately if and how to support the government in Beirut.

In a related story, Reuters reported that European budget airlines bore the brunt of Monday’s plunge in global stock markets as the arrival of the coronavirus in Italy pointed to a longer, deeper crisis than many have banked on. EasyJet dropped 16.4% and Ryanair 13.5% as airlines were forced to reassess the fallout from the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus across Asia and beyond, with South Korea, Italy and Iran now struggling to contain outbreaks.

Italy is facing a rising likelihood of a technical recession in the first quarter of this year as the rapidly worsening coronavirus outbreak threatens to further damage an economy that was already shrinking, the Financial Times reported. The Italian economy contracted 0.3 per cent quarter on quarter in the final three months of 2019, the steepest decline in six years, and the global economic impact of coronavirus could drive a further contraction in the succeeding quarter, said economists. A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.

A college set up to train engineers to work on Britain’s controversial HS2 high-speed railway line is at risk of administration following a series of management failures, including a legal attempt to gag an official education inspector’s report, the government was warned on Monday, the Financial Times reported. The National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure — formerly the National College of High Speed Rail — was opened by then transport minister Justine Greening in September 2017 with two state-of-the-art campuses in Birmingham and Doncaster.

The coronavirus outbreak is threatening to scupper a debt refinancing for the world’s third-largest container shipping company, Bloomberg News reported. France’s CMA CGM SA is aiming to start refinancing its debt pile by the end of next month. The Marseille-based company, one of the biggest maritime carriers out of China, is seeking to extend about $400 million of loans and is also in talks with creditors to refinance about 725 million euros ($784 million) of bonds due in January.

British Steel’s Chinese bidder has written to the French government in an effort to save its stalling takeover of the collapsed UK manufacturer, the Financial Times reported. With the clock ticking down on a deadline for the deal to be completed, Chinese conglomerate Jingye has sent a letter to the French finance ministry to persuade Paris of the plan’s merits, said people with knowledge of the matter. UK officials agreed a £50m rescue deal with Jingye in November. Under the agreement, Jingye would take control of the group’s plants in Britain, France and the Netherlands.